M6:4124 — نه ز ابراهیم نمرود گران / کرد با کرکس سفر بر آسمان

Translation: Neither did Nimrod, heavy from Abraham, / Journey to the sky with vultures.Meaning: This verse recounts Nimrod's arrogant and futile attempt to ascend to the heavens with vultures, refusing Abraham's spiritual guidance and seeking God through purely physical means.

This verse from the Masnavi is a profound lesson on the necessity of finding and submitting to a "Pir-e Rashad"—a guide of spiritual growth—in one's journey. As Mevlana emphasized in preceding verses, one's master should not be a "Pir-e Gardoūn" (one aged by time), but a seasoned traveler of the spiritual path who has matured and reached the destination. Nimrod here symbolizes self-reliance and arrogance.

"Heavy" with his own stubbornness and ego, Nimrod resisted the truth and Abraham's call to the God of the heavens. In his pride, he declared he would ascend to the sky himself to verify God's existence. The story of Nimrod's ascent with vultures, though an ancient legend not explicitly in the Quran (which only recounts their debate), serves as a potent metaphor for seeking spiritual truths through material and sensory means. Mevlana, with his brilliant prescience, extends this ancient tale into a biting critique of modern materialistic approaches.

He draws parallels between Nimrod's endeavor and the statements of Yuri Gagarin (claiming to have seen no God in space) or the 19th-century physiologist Claude Bernard (who vowed not to believe in the soul unless he found it under his surgical knife). These, Mevlana asserts, are fundamental fallacies—like Mulla Nasreddin searching for lost money under a streetlamp because it's bright, even though he lost it in a dark house. Spiritual reality is not a physical object to be found with rockets, vultures, or scalpels; its locus is not external to us.

Abraham's counter-offer to Nimrod—"Let me be your vulture, that would be better"—is an invitation to a different kind of ascent. With a true guide, one "will ascend to the sky without flying." This journey is not a spatial one but a spiritual, intellectual, and heartfelt voyage. The human heart, like lightning, travels from west to east without provision or mount, much like our senses and imagination during sleep. Mevlana contrasts this inner journey with "eghterāb" (alienation or estrangement).

"Eghterāb," as we understand it today, is a profound form of self-estrangement—losing oneself and mistaking oneself for something else. Mevlana believed that anyone who considers themselves merely a "body" suffers from the deepest form of self-alienation; all materialists and naturalists who equate the self with the physical body fall into this abyss. The body is merely our "mount" (markab) or "beast" (behimah), and to confuse oneself with one's mount is pure self-alienation.

Thus, Nimrod's "heaviness" is not physical, but the weighty burden of his ego and arrogance. Spiritual flight and ascent require lightness and submission, not ponderous self-will. The ladder to the sky, Mevlana concludes, is built not from vultures' wings but from the "Pir" and from "submission"; for "the Pir is the ladder to the sky."

Key takeaways

• Freedom from pride and arrogance is a fundamental prerequisite for discovering truth.
• Spiritual realities cannot be found through material or sensory tools and methods.
• The true journey towards God is an inner, heart-led voyage that demands spiritual lightness.
• A "Pir-e Rashad" or spiritual guide serves as the ladder for ascending to the heavens of knowledge.
• Reducing human identity solely to the physical body is a profound form of self-alienation.